Maduro may have been aligned with them, but that is a completely different thing than being protected by them. The DPRK is actually protected by the PRC, in the sense that the PRC is willing to and historically did deploy millions of soldiers to push back Americans from North Korean territory.
But note that happened in rhe 1950s, when Mao was in power and the PRC was an upstart separatist regime with very limited recognition. Now China may want to act very differently.
The reason Mao helped Pyongyang still applies: namely, it would make China less secure to have on its border a regime allied to a great power other than China.
They already have a border with Pakistan and got exactly zero problems from it (if anything, China is the one to stir up shit on that border). You seem to be repeating Putin-style propaganda points. Stalin and Mao were never threatened by the West really, that was part of the Marx-mandated global commie land grab.
Saying "The West is no threat to anyone" at the same time you're advocating for an invasion and abduction of a country's leader is certainly a position to hold. Not a very internally consistent or convincing one, though. And I suppose Vietnam never happened in your constructed reality.
China, Cuba and Russia sent him air defences and some personal guards. What would China's millions do if Kim was kidnapped? Invade Seoul that had no say in it?
Us has these nifty things called aircraft carriers, which were used to capture Maduro as well. They can be in international waters, the choppers fly quite far. China would not retaliate against the US.
That is a bold assertion to make considering China literally did retaliate against the US in North Korea once already, to the tune of war. Kidnapping heads of states is an act of war. Venezuela can't defend itself, but China certainly will do whatever is necessary to secure its vassal if the alternative is NK collapsing and having US military bases on its border.
You also rule out the possibility of an invasion of Seoul, as though it would be "unfair" -- when you're advocating for and actively in the process of tearing whatever remains of the concept of international law to shreds, what makes you think PRC would be inclined to play nice?
Other than by launching nukes (and getting 10x on themselves) China has no capability to attack the US. I don't think attacking SK is unlikely because it's "unfair", but rather because there's no incentive to do so. The concept of "if you attack Cuba we'll attack Europe" is an old playbook for the commies, and I think was always a bluff.
My point is that since in this scenario SK would likely be involved in some capacity (granting safe passage, harboring US planes, etc) they would suffer retaliation by NK and possibly China.
I don't see what's unlikely about this, it's basically NK's defense strategy.
> Us has these nifty things called aircraft carriers, which were used to capture Maduro as well.
It wasn't just carriers in Maduro's case. The operation was carried from multiple places, including out of Caribbean countries aligned with the US. The US was literally signing deals with those countries months in advance.
Who would those countries be in an hypothetical NK strike? Because those countries would suffer retaliation.
China knows about carriers, and tracks them carefully. They have built a variety of weapons to sink them, too, but I don’t think they’d need to use them: note how the raid on Maduro went so quietly that people have been looking for evidence that some of the Venezuelan military were in on it? North Korea has built up a lot more paranoia and China wouldn’t need to sink a carrier, simply ensuring that the NK military knows what’s coming as soon as planes take off and communicates that in a way which makes it impossible for any potentially disloyal faction to act short of declaring a coup (you can’t “accidentally” miss something the entire chain of command knows about). I detest the NK government but I’d expect that to be a much bloodier fight, especially after a huge warning.
China's primary concern is resource extraction from Venezuela, which is why Trump immediately clarified that they'd make sure China still got their oil deliveries.
Russia is stretched way too thin right now to do anything meaningful about it.
Venezuela was basically being run by Cuba. Maduro was really only a figurehead. The military and government was functionally run by imported Cubans which is why a coup wasn't possible.
